The bills introduced under Donald Trump we’ve been distracted from

US President Donald Trump is a master of distraction. Picture: Sal Loeb/AFP PhotoSource:AFP

DONALD Trump is a master of distraction.

Ask anyone what the US President has been up to since he was installed as the President of the United States in January and you’ll likely be delivered recollections of inflammatory tweets and minor scandals, and that travel ban he was so keen to boast about.

And while we’ve been caught up in Mr Trump’s celebrity arguments, his opinion on the latest series of the reality show he once starred in and how his daughter’s fashion line is going, about 2000 bills have been quietly introduced to US Congress.

From his Twitter feed, it may not seem like Mr Trump is particularly busy with presidential duties, but he’s trailing records for the number of executive orders he’s signed and the number of bills that have been tabled in the early days of his leadership.

Here are some of the major changes to America that have been under way since Mr Trump took charge.

TERMINATING THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

This bill is one of the few that has garnered a bit of attention.

Introduced amid the haze of an insulting tweet from the President about Hollywood heavyweight turned Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill to scrap the EPA would wind back measures put in place by former president Richard Nixon in 1970 to address pollution issues in American cities.

While it’s unlikely the bill to annihilate the entire department would pass, it’s looking like the President will move to diminish it to about two thirds of its size.

“The President wants a smaller EPA. He thinks they overreach,” said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. “You can’t drain the swamp and leave all the people in it.” The EPA budget would drop to $5.7 billion from its current $8.1 billion.

A separate bill that has environmental groups concerned proposes to repeal regulations that say you can’t kill certain wildlife for sport.

An executive order already put in place by Mr Trump has also concerned environmental groups who worry the order could put other regulations introduced to protect natural resources at risk.

The order states that for every regulation the executive branch proposes, two must be identified to repeal, and it’s feared environmental measures would be targeted.

There’s a lot a President can get up to behind the scenes while everyone’s looking at his Twitter feed. Picture: Evan Vucci/APSource:AP

GETTING RID OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

A bill before Congress has proposed to do away with the nation’s education department.

In the first week of March, while the press was preoccupied with questions over Mr Trump’s ties to Russia, bill HR 899 — designed to get rid of the department by the end of next year — was introduced by the Republican party.

It’s based around an idea that education policy should fall within the remit of state and local governments, but fails to provide details around what will happen to federal funding of schools.

“It would be fine with me to have myself worked out of a job,” she told Axios.

“But I’m not sure that there will be a champion movement in Congress to do that.”

Another bill in the in House, HR 610, is concerned with distributing federal funds “for elementary and secondary education in the form of vouchers for eligible students and to repeal a certain rule relating to nutrition standards in school”.

PUNISHING ABORTION PROVIDERS

There are currently several bills before Congress that would deliver harsh consequences to those who perform abortions.

In HR 354, the proposal to defend Planned parenthood, it proposed stripping the national family planning network of its federal funding unless clinics can prove they will not offer abortions.

There are exceptions — in cases of rape, incest or life threatening conditions termination may be allowed — but otherwise the clinics would lose government support for one year.

The Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act proposes to see criminal penalties applied to people who perform abortions. If this Act was introduced, violations cold result in up to five years’ jail time.

A third bill, introduced way back in January declared “each human life begins with fertilisation, cloning, or its equivalent”. This would not only essentially outlaw abortion, but impact assisted reproduction as well, as a fertilised egg, even if it hasn’t been implanted inside a woman’s uterus, would be considered a person and could not be put at risk or disposed of.

Cities that defy the President’s immigration order would be stripped of funding under a bill currently before Congress. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP

CREATING A NATIONAL RIGHT-TO-WORK ACT

The bill sounds like an positive, employment-boosting measure, but unionists are arguing it’s anything but.

Presenting the bill, Iowa Congressman Steve King said the bill would work to protect workers and create jobs.

But Democrats claim the legislation has one purpose: “to undermined the capacity of unions to protect workers and defend them”. And unions believe it will lead to lower wages and less secure jobs.

PUNISHING REBELLIOUS STATES

Some cities, Los Angeles and New York included, are so unhappy with the orders Mr Trump has already put in place they’ve promised to ignore them.

A bill concerned with “mobilising against sanctuary cities” will punish those that defy the President’s tough deportation orders.

Under the bill, a state or local government would be stripped of federal funding for one year if it “restricts or prohibits a government entity or official from: (1) sending to or receiving from the responsible federal immigration agency information regarding an individual’s citizenship or immigration status, or (2) maintaining or exchanging information about an individual’s status.”

A bill doesn’t make a law, until it’s passed through both houses and agreed upon, so it’s not certain that these measures will find their way into US legislation.

But, Mr Trump and his government is not holding back moving to make change. It’s something we should really be keeping an eye on.